Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent series and the Carve The Mark duology had a book signing this week at the Tattered Cover up in Denver on Thursday. I had found this out around a month ago and had put it down in my calendar. When the tickets went on sale, I went and sent the link to my aunt to buy them (yes I am a broke child), however when my aunt went to go buy the tickets, and they were sold out. Nonetheless when my aunt contacted them she was told that we could be put on a wait list. I must have been struck by lightning because when we got there and talked to the employees they said that they didn’t have any extra tickets. However, the lightning hit when a lady walked over and gave us a ticket. She informed us that she had an extra because their babysitter didn’t show so her husband had to stay behind. Of course on many occasions throughout the time that we were there, we thanked her. Sadly my aunt didn’t have ticket, but this thing wasn’t as important to her as it was to me; she only took me because she knew that I love Mrs.Roth.

When going to this thing I did kind of have my doubts about the author. She never seemed liked a political person, and I was worried that that is very well who she might be. However that isn’t who he was. In fact if none of the fans had asked somewhat political questions then I don’t think she would have mentioned anything that had to do with politics. It wasn’t like we went into any detail about politics apart from when the one fan asked about the inclusion of LGBT characters. Which I do have to say it was a good question as I don’t really wanna look up to someone who doesn’t accept people from that group. Though I wouldn’t have thought that she was against them because she put a gay character in her book. When talking about this subject she talked about diversity in her books. I think I agree with what she said and formed my own opinions for sure. What was said basically is that when you get to know a certain group of people more, you have a higher likelihood of putting those people in your writing more. She also said that there are all kinds of people that want to write about their people and that they should be given the chance to do so, basically saying that there are authors out there who are like you and want to write about people like them. What I formed from this was that people write about what they relate to, and their character is most likely a reflection of them in a way. I don’t think that we should pressure people do add diversity to things but rather let it flow into it, making it normalized. There are also authors out there that want to write about themselves in way and as the world grows so will diversity.

Throughout the whole time, she talked and we got to know more about her. We found out that when working on dystopian books it takes research. This brought us into odd things that she had looked up. One was even how to make a homemade explosive or something like that.This had to do with something for one of her books of course. I identified with this thought (no not because I am a domestic terrorist) but because I too look up odd things to get the facts right for my book.

While most things were fun there was some sad things. A girl sitting just in front of me raised her hand for one of the questions (this was first audience answered question), she had admitted to the whole audience that Veronica’s books had gotten her through a hard time in life, that they had kept her from suicide. She then proceeded to cry a little. Everyone awed, even me. I would have given her a hug, but I mean she doesn’t know me and that would have been a little odd. That might have made her feel worse if I would have done that, thought it’s not to say that my heart didn’t go out to her because it really did. This brought us to the discussion of putting characters with mental problems in books. I don’t remember that well on what was said and can’t really summarize it at all. Veronica did also talk about she struggles with anxiety and how she handles that. When she is having as bad day her husband helps her out with that and does things for her. She of course made light out of some of this, which is good because it shows that she is stronger than it. She also talked about her two Veronicas, one is writing Veronica where she hates people and the other is adult Veronica where she does business and talks to people.

While we were there someone also pointed out, and adult by the way. They pointed out that she there as much more than just teens and that many of the adults there read YA as well. I have known for a while that there is a lot of adults that read YA books but I had never seen it. I would say that there a was good mixture of generations there at the event. This is a good thing because this shows the maturity level of people, this shows that they are the mature ones because they don’t think that YA is dumb and for just teens. That they are better for reading adult books. Just because you read adult doesn’t make you more mature, if you think that it does then you probably are the person that’s not mature.

Veronica also decided to complement our generation (that is genZ). She said how when her and her sister were in school that people were mocked for who they were. How it was only a little better when she got to high school sometime after her sister. After seeing our schools she noticed that there were opposite and same sex couples both making out in the hallway, no one was really mocking them for that. From what I see in school this is true. Of course granted there are those few idiots who make fun of it not as a joke but because they think it’s wrong or not ok, but we don’t listen to those people. She said that our generation is in the way the hope of tomorrow. This isn’t exactly what she said word for word, that’s why there is no quotes around them. I would just like to point that out.

Eventually we got the signing of books. The problem with this is is that I didn’t bring any personal books like I would have liked to. I had read the description for the event and must have missed something because I read that it was not a signing. When I got there, however, people were getting sticky notes to put into their books to get them signed. I ended up having to buy two books. Of course I did end up getting the books signed because we bought them.

Getting my books signed gave me a chance to talk to the author for probably what was just few seconds. Of course wanting to be an author myself I had to ask her what the hardest part of beginning was for her. She mentioned earlier that she didn’t use to use and outline but now she uses a minor one. When asking her she told me, I’m not gonna quote this; but she did say that the hardest part of getting the book done was getting the first draft finished. That I would have to agree with so far, as that is what I am still working on.

I think that this was a really cool experience though because I got to learn more about one of my favorite people. The fact that I was able to even see this god-like figure (figure of speech) in real life is amazing. Writers have problems with their writing like I do and what I am experiencing is normal. She gives me hope for others who are out there and for my future. I am glad and thankful that that lady had a extra ticket for me to see this event and get my books signed. If you are reading this and haven’t read one of Veronica Roth’s books then I would suggest that you do so. As always thank you very much for taking the time to read this article.